GLEN SAVAGE (Timeform rating 91p) had only a short head to spare in making a winning debut for John and Thady Gosden in a maiden over a mile and three furlongs at Newbury on Sunday.
Even after the photo-finish had gone his way, he then had to survive an objection from the rider of the runner-up but, while the first two had a nip-and-tuck battle through the final furlong, it looked more a case of the second being outbattled. In any case there wasn’t enough interference to alter the result.
Runner-up Title was sent off the even-money favourite having finished second on his only start at Newbury last season but, despite his rival having the advantage of that experience, Glen Savage looked the more professional of the pair as they pulled six lengths clear of the third.
Never far away, Glen Savage travelled well before leading three out and just held on after edging right in the final hundred yards. While Glen Savage doesn’t yet hold any major entries himself, it was encouraging that he proved too good for a rival who has engagements in the Dante and Derby. Glen Savage’s owner Lady Bamford won the same maiden in both 2013 and 2014 with the Gosden-trained newcomers Feel Like Dancing and Eagle Top who went on to win the Bahrain Trophy and King Edward VII Stakes respectively.
Glen Savage comes from the second crop of Gleneagles, winner of the 2000 Guineas, its Irish equivalent and the St James’s Palace Stakes. Although a miler himself, Gleneagles has produced winners over longer trips, including his best horse on current Timeform ratings (118), Highland Chief, who was runner-up in last year’s Great Voltigeur Stakes.
Glen Savage comes from a family that John Gosden knows well as he trained his dam Rocksavage and a couple of her most notable siblings. Rocksavage showed nothing but greenness in a couple of maidens at Nottingham and Kempton but, whatever she did on the track, she was always going to be a valuable broodmare as a half-sister to Nathaniel.
He progressed rapidly for Gosden after winning a maiden at Haydock in the April of his three-year-old season, going on to win the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot and then the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes as well as winning the Eclipse Stakes on his reappearance at four.
Nathaniel and his sister Great Heavens, who won the Lancashire Oaks and Irish Oaks, were both by Gleneagles’ sire Galileo.
That pair are just two of the ten winners produced by Glen Savage’s grandam Magnificient Style, winner of the Musidora Stakes.
Her other good winners include the Fillies’ Mile winner Playful Act, the Park Hill and Sun Chariot winner Echoes In Eternity and the Yorkshire Cup winner Percussionist.
